


a werewolf in a tower in the big city

by Lexiliscious



Series: how the Avengers accidentally become a pack [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky The Mother Hen Werewolf, Cuddling & Snuggling, Gen, M/M, Scent Marking, Scenting, Van Helsing Style Werewolves, shifted!Bucky, werewolf!Bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-15
Updated: 2016-10-15
Packaged: 2018-08-22 14:11:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8288549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lexiliscious/pseuds/Lexiliscious
Summary: this part is just straight fluff. Featuring: Bucky hiding under the bed, Steve taking a shower, helpful Jarvis, and Tony almost ruining everything.





	

They all go on a mission the day of the full moon. Steve tells him not to worry, he’ll be back in time to sit with him, and he told Jarvis not to let anyone on their floor in case Pepper or Darcy or someone else decided to stop by.

Bucky is _suffering_. Everything is too loud, Bucky can hear the people that actually work in the building, floors and floors and floors down, can hear all the traffic in front of the tower like it’s in the room with him. He’s pretty sure he can hear someone, somewhere, getting off. The only real comfort he has is that everything smells like Steve, and he’s been talking with Jarvis about hand signals he can use if he needs something while he’s in a non-verbal state.

It's well past midnight when Steve finally comes home. He calls out for Bucky, probably expecting him to be waiting near the door, or to tackle him as soon as he walks in, or both, but Bucky doesn’t come.

“Sergeant Barnes is under the bed, sir.” Bucky hears Jarvis chime helpfully. Bucky’s been under the bed for hours since shifting. The noises got worse, there was nothing to hunt, and there was no Steve to cuddle with, either. Miserably, he’d pulled all the blankets and pillows off the bed and shoved them under it, along with all the laundry, dirty and clean, in the room, and had muscled most of his body underneath with it. Truth of it was, in his werewolf form, he was too big to fit all the way under the bed; his hips, legs, and tail hung out dejectedly.

Steve laughs at him when he comes in, and Bucky whines pitifully in a way that he hopes lets Steve know he doesn’t appreciate it. “Aw, Buck, c’mon, come outta there.” He coaxes, still laughing. Bucky huffs at him and shuffles a little further under for good measure. Steve tugs on his tail, gently, and Bucky has to curl it around one of his legs and away from him. “Don’t be like that, Bucky, come out and see me. I missed you.”

Bucky still doesn’t move, so Steve grabs him by the haunches and starts hauling him out. Bucky lets out a few token protests, scratches at the floor and pulls half of what’s tucked under the bed out with him, but let’s Steve do his thing. He sits back on his butt once he’s out from under the bed, ears pinned flat to his head in fake annoyance. He’s never really been able to stay mad at Steve for longer than half a minute.

“Buck, you’ve got—“ Steve gestures at his head, snickering, and Bucky reaches up to pull a pair of boxers off his head. They’re Steve’s. They have tiny shields all over them. Bucky chuffs and throws them at his face when he starts laughing so hard that he goes red all over.

Then Bucky notices the cuts in his uniform, and the little scorch marks, and the smell, and he’s suddenly crowding into Steve and tugging at his close and nosing at him before he makes the conscious effort to do so. Bucky’s always been half werewolf, half mother hen—at least when it came to Steve. He dwarfs him in this form, but Bucky’s got years of practice at using just the right amount of strength with him, just the right way to curl his fingers so his claws won’t catch on Steve’s skin. Now Steve huffs at him, but he lets him do what he wants. “Oh, now you wanna see me?” He teases, scratching behind Bucky’s pointed ears.

Bucky whines at him, nips at his fingers so he’ll stop distracting him. “I’m fine, Buck, just some scratches, nothing to worry about. Don’t you dare start licking me,” He warns. “I’ll leave you here.”

Bucky pulls back to give him his best unimpressed look, and Steve laughs again. “Okay, okay, fair enough, but still. I’ll be all healed up in a few hours, there’s no need for you to slobber all over me like a cave… wolf?”

Bucky’s going to roll his eyes out of his head one day, and it’s going to be Steve Roger’s fault.

As it is, he pulls Steve to his feet and pushes him to the bathroom. Steve _stinks_. He smells like wherever the battlefield was, other people, sweat, blood, and just overall grime and Bucky hates it. Steve knows Bucky hates it, because he made him shower after he got into fights back before the war, too.

“What, you want me to shower?” He asks, all innocence. Bucky huffs and tugs the rest of his tattered and torn suit-top off and tosses it away. He looks very meaningfully at the bottoms, then at their—obscenely large, really—tub. Steve laughs under his breath but obligingly divests himself of his boots and the rest of his suit and gets into the tub. Bucky sits on the floor as he starts the spray, watching with half-interest to see if Steve will hiss if the soap or water hits him anywhere in particular. Steve’s always been a liar about how much damage he’s taken. This time, though, Steve just hums quietly, scrubs himself down until the last of the dirt and blood has washed down the drain and the water is clear, and then climbs out. Bucky hands him a towel, gold eyes lingering on a series of cuts along Steve’s clavicle. Steve shakes his hair out, sending little droplets of water everywhere, making Bucky growl playfully and wrinkle his nose when a few land on him. Steve just grins at him.

“Do I smell better now, cave wolf?” He asks. Bucky stares at him blankly, unimpressed, then shrugs his shoulder in a clear ‘I guess.’ Fashion. Steve throws the towel over his head. “You’re a jerk.” He laughs, moving around him to rifle under the bed for clean clothes to put on. Then he starts pulling out the rest of the stuff Bucky shoved under there, most notably the pillows and blankets. He puts it all back together, leaving the clothes scattered all over the place.

He climbs into the bed, then pats the space next to him, looking expectantly at Bucky. Bucky comes over obligingly, but stops at the edge of the bed to just look him over for a minute. Steve shifts a little under his gaze, ever self-conscious even though Bucky doesn’t think he’s ever been anything but the best guy he’s ever known. He wants to reassure Steve of that, but, well… He can’t talk when he’s shifted like this. His expressions are pretty limited, too. He tugs on Steve’s ankle, then jerks his head over his shoulder toward the living room. He likes the bedroom, but now that Steve’s home, he wants to sit under the moonlight, and only the big windows in the living room will allow for that. Steve blinks at him in confusion, but Bucky can hear him shuffling around when he turns and heads to the living room.

He sits under the window in a patch of moonlight, eyes half-lidded and unfocused, while Steve brings half their shared blankets in and piles them on the couch. Pillows too. He manhandles the couch over so it’s pressed up against the window, then gets himself comfortable before beckoning Bucky over.

Bucky is way too large for the couch in this form. His fur-covered shoulders are nearly twice the breadth of Steve’s, and he stands at nearly seven feet when he rears up on his back legs. He can settle quite happily half on the floor, though; upper half of his body leaned over and wrapped around Steve with his head tucked up under his chin, lower half sitting stretched out on the ground beside it. He relaxes piece by piece as Steve scratches his fingers through his fur, runs them gently along his muzzle and his now-closed eyes. He licks at them when they pass close enough to his mouth and Steve chuckles and makes a noise of mock-disgust before half-heartedly wiping them off in Bucky’s fur. Bucky’s not even worried about Clint upstairs—even though he can hear him making a racket—Steve’s touch and Steve’s smell and Steve’s heart beating underneath his chin are enough to calm all the wild parts of him that had felt caged and alone before he came home.

He's half drifted to sleep when the elevator door dings. Steve says, “Jarvis, don’t open the elevator doors!” Urgently, and obligingly, the doors don’t open.

“Mr. Stark requests entrance, sir.” Jarvis reports dutifully.

“Tell him we’ll talk in the morning.” Steve sighs. Bucky growls distastefully at the twist Steve’s scent has taken, and rubs his head against him, trying to urge him to stop bickering with the AI and go back to the comfortable lull they’d been in before. Bucky’s got a one-track mind right now, and Tony Stark finding out he’s a werewolf isn’t high on his list of priorities.

“Sir says he wants to speak with you now.”

“Tell him I can’t,” Steve groans. “Tell him—Bucky’s having an episode right now and I’m calming him down.”

Jarvis is silent for a while, then says, “Sir wants to know if we should engage Winter Soldier protocols.”

“ _No_ , Jesus,” Bucky’s one-track mind is now invested in the conversation. His ears perk and swivel toward where Tony is talking in the elevator, listening to his conversation with Jarvis. “I’ve got it in here, I just can’t talk right now and it’s probably not a good idea for him to come in either.”

More silence, in which Bucky pulls back to glower at Steve and growl a little when he chuckles in embarrassment. He hopes his look conveys that they’re going to talk about this in the morning, because they are. “Sorry, Buck,” Steve offers, and sounds like he means it. Bucky lets out a long, put-upon breath through his nose, but accepts his apology, licking a stripe up the side of his face and sticking his hair up in an outrageous cow-lick in retaliation. Steve yelps, and looks vaguely disgusted, but takes his punishment for what it is, grumbling quietly until Bucky nuzzles back up to him.

“Sir expects you in his lab at 9A.M. or he’s going to assume Mr. Barnes has killed you. I did advise you were in no danger, but sir seemed skeptical.”

“Thank you, Jarvis.”

Bucky hears the elevator descending, but doesn’t pay much attention to it; Steve’s starting to scratch at that spot underneath his ear that makes his spine feel like jello, the asshole. Bucky’s arms tighten around him, more gently with the mechanical one, and he rubs his face against his neck again, already starting to get drowsy again.

Before he actually falls asleep, Steve turns his head into his fur, nuzzling him back, just a little, and Bucky feels him smile.

It’s the best sleep he’s had in weeks.


End file.
